China's Fight Against Opium

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jan 19, 1911

China's Fight Against Opium

WHEN, many years ago, China was compelled to admit opium from India, the cultivation of the poppy was encouraged at home to compete with the trade from abroad. Now, however, the Chinese government is making one of the greatest fights in history against a national vice. It is rapidly cutting down the production of the drug in China. Now the students of northern China are organizing a great protest against the importation of opium; and strong organizations in Great Britain are seeking to secure action on the part of the Indian authorities. Here are some lines from the Chinese students' appeal to the British nation:—

For fifty years the opium trade has been bringing thousands of pounds of the black curse to China. This poison has brought sorrow, poverty, and death to millions of our people. Now our government and our people fully realize ,the danger, and have made strict laws to overcome this great evil. For three years the battle against the planting of opium has been going on, and the world can see that China is thoroughly in earnest because of what she has done. But still the opium continues to come in from abroad, and we can not stop it because of the treaty of fifty years ago. Alas! alas! how can we save China? As one editor has said, “Our country is burning up, and the English are furnishing the fuel.” We are deeply moved as we hear of so many of the English people who are praying and working that this trade may be speedily stopped. . . . The governor of the Canton province undertook severe measures to protect his people from the black poison from India. For several months the trade was demoralized, and the opium merchants of Hongkong appealed to the British minister. It was decided that China had no right to interfere with the trade. The viceroy has now resigned because he was not able to protect his people. . . . China has not the right to save her people from opium. Alas! is this indeed so? And is it the enlightened, Christian nation of England that has taken away this right? If so, we appeal to you to set us free.